According to employee’s testimonies, the management at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House located on 104 Bryan Wood Rd in Savannah, Ga, didn’t even bother telling their staff. They just cleaned house like cat burglars and left a sign on the front door.

A spokesman for Paula Deen’s family has confirmed that a Georgia restaurant at the center of a lawsuit that left the celebrity chef’s reputation in shambles has closed its doors.

Spokesman Jaret Keller says in a statement that Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House in Savannah closed Thursday.

The restaurant opened in 2004. Deen co-owned it with Hiers, who oversaw daily operations. Former manager Lisa Jackson sued them both in 2012, saying she worked in an environment rife with racial slurs and sexual innuendo.

Savannah media, including The Savannah Morning News and WSAV-TV, first reported the restaurant’s closing Thursday.

Keller claims that Bubba Heir’s, the restaurant owner and Deen’s brother closed the restaurant to “explore” development options in waterfront property. Possibly in the Sahara or nah?

Deen came under tremendous fire last summer when she agreed with a 2012 lawsuit against her that alleged she used the n-word to describe her indentured servants. The backlash from the ordeal was a swift one. She was not only the centerpiece to an intense online bashing but she was also fired from her FOOD Network post as well.

TMZ found out that employees didn’t take the news rather kindly and vented about it on their Facebook page.

People were pissed off, including one woman who says, “My mother worked there for over 8 years and no one called her!!! My fiance also worked there no one called him, in fact a UB manager called him LAST NIGHT to get his availability for next week!”

Another wrote, “My mother put in some hard work for years with you & she finds out when she shows up for work this morning to be escorted by a police officer to get her belongings.”

You could say Bubba took the money and ran but if there was any dough left, there wouldn’t have been a struggle shutdown.